Guest “fracking A, Bubba!” by David Middleton
Note: This is a politically charged post. If you don’t like such posts, don’t bother reading it.
What would happen if frac’ing was banned?
The short answer: We all freeze in the dark. For the long answer, read the US Chamber of Commerce paper.
The 2016 report was intended to lay out the implications of reckless, if not treasonous, energy policy demands of politicians and activists.
WHAT IF… HYDRAULIC FRACTURING WAS BANNED?
This paper marks the fourth in a series of reports produced by the Energy Institute being released this fall, each taking a substantive look at what might have happened in the past – or could happen in the future – if certain energy-related comments and policy prescriptions put forth by prominent politicians and their supporters were actually adopted. We’re calling it the Energy Accountability Series.
One doesn’t need to look far these days to find platforms or outlets that claim to be definitive “factcheckers” of all manner of utterances candidates make on the campaign trail. On that, the Energy Accountability Series is not reinventing the wheel. What we’re much more interested in – and what we think will be much more valuable to voters – is taking a step back to better understand (and quantify where possible) the real-world, economy-wide consequences of living in a world in which candidates’ rhetoric on critical energy issues were to become reality.
Too often, there is a temptation to dismiss statements made by candidates as things said “off the cuff” or in the “heat of the moment,” or perhaps offered up merely to “appeal to their base.” This is incredibly cynical, and it needs to change. A candidate’s views and the things they say and do to win the support of interest groups have a real impact on how policy is shaped and implemented. That is especially true on energy issues, as groups continue to advance a “Keep It In the Ground” agenda that, if adopted, would force our country to surrender the enormous domestic benefits and global competitive advantages that affordable energy development have made possible.
[…]
In this report, we explore what would happen if the politicians and environmental activists got what they say they support: a complete ban on fracking. While many proponents of such a ban may choose to ignore these economic impacts, it is our hope that the general public – including in particular the constituents of the politicians supporting these bans – will not so casually dismiss these findings. The job loss numbers alone that would result from a ban on fracking are enough to encourage greater scrutiny of those who have allied themselves with the “Keep It In the Ground” campaign.
[…]
US Chamber of Commerce
The Chamber of Commerce (CoC) then listed some particularly reckless, if not treasonous, energy policy prescriptions by politicians and activists.
By the time we get through all of my conditions, I do not think there will be many places in America where fracking will continue to take place.
Hillary Clinton, Democratic nominee; Mar. 6, 2016
I’m going to pledge to stop fossil fuels.
Hillary Clinton, Democratic nominee; Feb. 5, 2016
Let me make it as clear as I can be … we are going to ban fracking in 50 states of this country.
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt); June 1, 2016
Which is more likely: The “Bern” knowing jack schist about frac’ing? Or the “Bern” thinking that there might be 57 states in this country?
There is an urgent need to keep fossil fuels in the ground if we want to protect the planet for future generations.
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.); Feb. 11, 2016
There is an urgent need for Jared Huffman to be institutionalized.
[F]rom this point on, anyone proposing a new fracking field … or oil well is, in effect, a climate denier
Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org & DNC platform committee member; Sept. 29, 2016
WTF is a “fracking field”? Regarding proposing new oil wells… I denied climate four times in 2019!
Until we fully understand the effects [of fracking], the only way to avoid these risks is to halt fracking entirely
Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wisc.); April 22, 2015
Only a fracking idiot would say something that stupid… Oh wait, (D-Wisc.)… ‘Nuff said.
We must keep our United States fossil fuel reserves, owned by the citizens, in the ground.
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.); Nov. 4, 2015
Setting aside the fact the Merkley clearly doesn’t know the difference between reserves and resources… The only way that the citizens can benefit from United States fossil fuel resources is to convert them to reserves and take them out of the ground.
Any serious plan to combat climate change must include a ban on fracking.
Food & Water Watch; June 8, 2016
In which case, Food & Water Watch would be watching food & water disappear from supermarket shelves… Because skyrocketing oil & natural gas prices would quickly make farming and the transportation of food and bottled water to supermarkets unaffordable.
WHAT IF FRACKING WAS BANNED IN THE U.S., STARTING NEXT YEAR?
A fracking ban would be a disaster for the U.S. economy, exceeding the economic harm caused by the financial crisis, the housing bust, and the Great Recession – combined. Those concurrent events cost the United States around 8 million jobs. A ban on fracturing would destroy more
than 14 million jobs, all while raising costs for families and considerably reducing American energy security.Here are a few of the key impacts:
- “The United States would lose 14.8 million jobs”
- “Gasoline prices would almost double”
- “Natural gas prices would skyrocket to over $12 per mmBtu”
This one would be great for me… I work the Gulf of Mexico. At $12/mcf (~mmBtu), there’s a lot of natural gas to be had, and most of it doesn’t require frac’ing. Of course, the same treasonous idiots who would ban frac’ing, would also ban offshore drilling.
- “U.S. electricity prices would nearly double”
And… As Marcellus/Utica and Texas “shale” gas production took a nose-dive, we would be importing much more of our gas from places like Russia, Qatar, etc.
Other “lowlights”:
- “COST-OF-LIVING WOULD GO UP BY NEARLY$4,000 A YEAR, WHILE HOUSEHOLD INCOMES WOULD DROP BY $873 BILLION”
- “THE U.S. WOULD SURRENDER ITS STATUS AS A GLOBAL ENERGY SUPERPOWER”
- “U.S. GDP WOULD BE REDUCED BY $1.6 TRILLION”
- “OHIO, PENNSYLVANIA, COLORADO, AND TEXAS WOULD BE AMONG THE HARDEST HIT BY A BAN”
2020: “It’s worse. It’s so much worse.”
Is 2020 any better than 2016?
From The Washington Post…
“Yes, I support a ban on all hydraulic fracking operations.”
Tulsi Gabbard
“Yes. Fracking is a danger to our water supply. It’s a danger to the air we breathe. It has resulted in more earthquakes. It’s highly explosive. And, to top it off, methane from natural gas is contributing to climate change.”
Bernie Sanders
“Safe fracking is, like clean coal, pure fiction. … No amount of regulation can make it safe. When [Sanders] is in the White House, he is going to ban fracking nationwide and rapidly move to 100 percent clean, sustainable energy.”
Bernie Sanders campaign spokesman
“Yes, we should ban fracking, but that can’t happen instantly. We need to push as hard as possible to make the transition as fast as possible.”
“We need to stop the expansion of all forms of fossil fuel infrastructure and production. Under my administration no new fracking or other types fossil fuel development would occur on public lands, and we would implement a responsible plan to phase out existing operations. We need to responsibly phase out the existing operations in line with a transition to 100% clean energy while investing in workers and communities.”
“The question in all of this is how fast can you change your electricity generation and how can you do it without disrupting the economy.”
“When you think about this, when you think about the percentage that’s fracked, and what the alternatives are, and what it would mean, I’m not sure you can just say there is no fracking for starters. You can say there’s no fracking on federal land. You can say, no new federal leases for fracking. I would do that. I think you can push as hard as possible to make the transition as fast as possible.”
Tom Steyer
“I favor a ban on new fracking and a rapid end to existing fracking so that we can build a 100 percent clean energy society as soon as possible,”
Pete Buttigieg
Well on a positive note that should make OPEC Happy that they will be back in The Oil business big time.
— Redlion’s Den (@eddierrn24) September 8, 2019
What a Joke. Get off the Stage..
In the Permian Basin, alone, this would destroy somewhere between $25 and $100 trillion of value.
What the “shale” revolution has delivered
The CoC graphs are a little dated; they are from the EIA’s 2016 Annual Energy Outlook. However, they clearly demonstrate the value of frac’ing, without which our natural gas and crude oil production would have been declining since 2006.
The dominance of the “shale” plays in our natural gas production is unmistakable. In 2000, tight/”shale” gas only comprised about 25% of our production. By 2018, it accounted for over 80% and EIA projects that it will be over 90% by 2050.
The Marcellus/Utica formations in the Appalachia region account for nearly half of our “shale” gas production.
A frac’ing ban would immediately lead to a nose dive in natural gas production. Almost all of the growth since 2010 was due to frac’ing:
Without frac’ing, natural gas production would have done something like this:
The EIA currently projects natural gas prices to trade in the range of $2.33 to $2.54/mmBtu (million Btu) over the next couple of years.
The upper and lower bounds of the 95% confidence interval reflect the uncertainties about demand, production, economic growth, the weather, etc. Even then, the upper bound is $4-5/mmBtu. A frac’ing ban would quickly drive prices back up above where they were in 2005-2008 and higher.
We had already drilled our way to lower natural gas prices when Obama uttered that particular lie.
A frac’ing ban would drive prices higher than they were in 2005-2008, to over $12/mmBtu.
We drilled our way to lower gasoline prices from 2008 to 2015, by increasing the supply of crude oil.
We can easily drill our way to lower oil prices… Just like we could easily not-drill our way back to higher oil prices.
The Benedict Arnold One-Two Punch
Most of the treasonous Enviromarxist terrorists politicians and activists, demanding a frac’ing ban, are also demanding an end to offshore drilling: A one-two punch knockout blow to our nation’s energy security.
The vast majority of US crude oil production, and all of the growth since 2008, is from the Permian Basin, Gulf of Mexico and various “shale” plays.
The only one of those regions that wouldn’t be eviscerated by a frac’ing ban, is the Gulf of Mexico. However, a ban on offshore drilling would be a serious “two punch.”
Hurricanes in 2005 (Katrina & Rita) and 2008 (Ike) inflicted extensive damage on Gulf of Mexico oil & gas infrastructure, depressing production by about 250,000 bbl/d from 2006-2008. The Obama maladministration’s unlawful drilling moratorium and “permitorium” in response to the Deepwater Horizon blowout and oil spill depressed production by about 500,000 bbl/d from 2011-2013.
Since then, Gulf of Mexico oil production has surged to record levels and is expected to top 2 million barrels per day in 2020 as a dozen recent deepwater discoveries are brought online.
While a President Fauxcahontas or Commissar Bernie could inflict similar damage, barring new legislation from Congress, the courts would probably slap her/him down even harder than they slapped Obama down.
About 9.2 million barrels per day of current US oil production comes from tight formations and the Gulf of Mexico.
Frac’ing and offshore drilling account for over 75% of current US crude oil production and almost all of the future growth potential for US production and reserves growth.
While an Enviromarxist ban on frac’ing and offshore drilling wouldn’t drop our production to zero-point-zero immediately, the decline would be quick and particularly sharp in the tight formations, like the Permian Basin. Obama’s unlawful Gulf of Mexico moratorium, very quickly dropped production by about 500,000 bbl/d and the 2014-2016 crash in oil prices caused a similar decline in the Permian Basin. A ban on frac’ing would be catastrophic in the Permian Basin. It would be even worse for natural gas. About 70% of current US natural gas production and all of the future growth potential is from “shale” and other tight formations requiring frac’ing.
Conclusion
Anyone calling for frac’ing ban is mentally ill. A frac’ing ban wouldn’t change this:
A frac’ing ban would just drive up oil & natural gas prices, force us to import more crude oil and convert LNG export terminals into import terminals. To paraphrase Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm in The Lost Word, Jurassic Park…
A frac’ing ban would be “the worst idea in the long, sad history of bad ideas.”
Any POTUS who tried to enact frac’ing and offshore drilling bans ban would be committing a treasonous act. Our national security is dependent on access to abundant, affordable, useful energy. U.S. crude oil production helped win World Wars I and II.
A frac’ing ban would be a deliberate attempt to sabotage our nation’s energy infrastructure and national security. It would return us to dependence on Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, the Soviet Union Russia, Venezuela and other “friendly” nations for the oil needed to defend this nation.
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.
US Constitution, Article III, Section 3
A frac’ing ban would be giving “aid and comfort” to the Kremlin, the Mullahs in Tehran and the Communist dictator in Venezuela.
Notes about nomenclature
Fracking vs. frac’ing
Frac’ing is a common well completion procedure that has been safely employed in oil & gas production for more than 70 years. There is no evidence whatsoever that frac’ing has ever polluted groundwater or triggered significant palpable earthquakes. Wastewater injection wells aren’t frac’ing. Frac’ing is a contraction of “hydraulic fracturing”. Fracking is a cleaned up version of the “F” word.
Shale vs. “shale”
I try to put quotation marks around the word shale when I use it in reference to “shale” plays. Many “shale” plays aren’t actually shale.
Is it Shale or not Shale? That is the Question.
In a previous blog on unconventionals, ”Conventional vs. Unconventional Shale: What is my Reservoir?,” Richard Day wrote about the nontrivial problem of classifying reservoirs as conventional or unconventional formations. I would like to continue this topic, as, in Europe, this issue has made it into the headlines of local newspapers. People in small villages have become “experts” in the field of geology, and believe they can determine whether exploration is for conventional or unconventional hydrocarbons, and whether it threatens their tranquillity. If they deem it so, from England to Poland, they voice their concerns.Personally, if I had a choice, I would prefer to have unconventional drilling in my backyard rather than conventional. The high environmental standards and restrictive regulations give more guarantees that unconventional drilling is more secure and environmentally friendly than conventional drilling. But, sometimes, local people are afraid of whatever we call “shale.” Here, I would like to show examples of rocks that do not meet the definition of shale, but are still perceived as shale. Definitions can be misleading, and the nature of shale is more complex than people believe.
[…]
Recently, I was forced to change my presentation because I used the word “shale” for a rock containing over 45% clay minerals (as was reported in an X-ray diffraction (XRD) test and consistent with my petrophysical analysis), but the operator was wary of naming this rock as a “shale.” Shale can be defined as: ”Shale is laminated, indurated (consolidated) rock with > 67% clay-sized materials.” Jackson, J.A. (1997). Glossary of Geology, 4th Ed., American Geological Institute.
While it is always good to have reliable sources of knowledge, please take a look at the mineral composition of known shale gas plays in the U.S., as presented in Fig. 1 – which shows that almost none of the U.S. shale gas plays meet the criteria of the definition given above. According to this definition, there are no shale gas plays in the U.S. “Houston, we have a problem…”
[…]
Halliburton
About the author of this WUWT post
I have been a geologist/geophysicist in the “climate wrecking” (oil & gas) industry since 1981. I am a member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG), Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) and Houston Geological Society (HGS).
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“There is an urgent need for Jared Huffman to be institutionalized.”
The “Rep-” in front of his name means he has been institutionalized.
Dem candidate should automatically lose OH and PA. Some dolts in those “swing states” will still vote Dem. Texas and Colorado too…
I used to work in the oil patch in Canada until 2 years ago where I retired to the farm. Fracking is nothing new it has been going on since the sixties in the oil patch. The reasons that it has become more used and more common is that technology has advanced to the point that it can provide cheaper energy for many years to come. The reduction in costs has allowed the new technology to open up areas that were marginal for production like shale formations and shallow deposits. Directional drilling has allowed for multi frack points in the horizontal pay zone from well head. The introduction of step fracking in these pay zones allows for a number of different openings in the pay zone to be added in one operation. One of the big factors for the cost reductions in the process is the development of lighter larger horsepower diesel engine that could be mounted on skids, trailers or the backs of trucks. This allowed for the reduction of costs to a point where it became more common to use this technology on marginal wells.
In the sixties it would be used on a high production well to extend its life or to keep production up. In the sixties the costs were running $1500 a horse power per hour running for the fracking process. I was involved as a service representative for a turbine company that was there to keep the gas turbines mounted on the back of truck running to allow for the maximum amount of horsepower to be applied to the well head. These 1100 Horsepower unit would be ganged together in clusters up to 14 units on a single well head to use their high pressure pumps to deliver the fracking solution into very deep wells. The units would run for up to 6 hours per well so there was a lot of expense during that period and a lot of companies would forgo that expense.
The use of multi-point fracking widely today was mainly developed in the shale fields of northern Canada. The reduced depth that fracking is performed on shale formation requires less horsepower to achieve the results to bring in production. The fear mongering by the Greens is just that as most of their points are ridiculous to the extreme. Water pumped in with solutions and sand is recovered and reused as much as possible. Cross contamination from the well bore to the ground water is not only gas lighting it is almost impossible as the well bore casing is cemented and sealed for a great depth from the surface before the fracking process is under taken. At the start of the fracking process the well bore is lined with production casing and the pay zones are identified as to where the casing will be penetrated. In some cases a penetration “BOX” is added to the casing area to allow for better control. The well bores are pressure tested before the fracking and if any loss of circulation is seen then the process is halted until the leak is identified. Ground water is usually seen in the first 200 to 300 feet of the well bore and these areas are isolated from the fracking areas that range at the 1200 feet to 1500 feet or deeper in these formations by steel casings and pumped in sealer cement.
In Canada the well funded Greens have been ahead of gas field development in some areas where fear mongering and a well run propaganda campaign have limited the development of new Shale gas fields. This was seen in New Brunswick and Quebec where the Greens went all in to stop this development with a gas lighting smear propaganda campaign to force legislation to ban the use of fracking. In New Brunswick a lot of people still burn coal, wood and diesel fuel oil to heat their homes as natural gas is not available. This is criminal as there are shale gas fields in the northern part of this province and all development was halted because of this fear mongering brought on by the Greens. The use of these other fuels puts way more CO2 and particulates into the atmosphere but that known fact is lost in the shuffle. Heating better electrically New Brunswick is enough to put you in the poor house after one season. Now the Greens have started to target wood fire heat in the same province. The government needs to STOP listening to this vocal minority of Green destroyers and put the good of the major population first.
I am not disputing anything you have written. I would just like to add that here in the States we were fracing in great numbers in the 50’s using pumps powered by Allison radial engines left over from the war. And as I understand it, it was noisy.
Not necessarily newly drilled wells. Mostly old wells that were nearing their economic limit. These wells were fraced using lease crude and walnut hulls. They were refered to as Adomite fracs. Fracing revitalized many old fields that had been abandoned or shut-in.
David:
I have a REALLY radical idea. Let’s mandate that all students at a state supported college or university must take AND pass a basic course in mineral and petroleum economics in order to graduate from said institution. I can hear the wailing now!
I think you need to mandate a basic course in applied energy numbers. None of the claims add up.
A class in basic macro and micro economics would cure most of their ills. But then again AOC managed to bastardize even basic economics.
“What would happen if frac’ing was banned?
The short answer: We all freeze in the dark. ”
Ha ha haaah.
That reminds me the time in 1975, as in Germany, Baden-Württemberg’s Prime Min Karl Filbinger told on an evening in the TV, hand on heart and with dachshund eyes
i.e. “If we don’t quickly start building the nuke plant, then light will go off before the year 1980 comes to us”.
*
Forty years later, Germany moved from 57 % coal/lignite, 28 % nuke, 7 % gas and 4% ren (hydro) in 1990 to 35 % coal/lignite, 12 % nuke, 11 % gas and 35 % ren (of which 17 % are wind).
Und die Lichter, Herr Middleton, sind bei uns – Sie werden es nicht glauben! – immer noch an.
And… let me add, Sir, that we are far from where we should be according to even the weakest plan, what we funnily have to thank both the conservative camp and the social democrats.
While the former still couldn’t stop pushing nuke, the latter are as usual busy with saving hopeless jobs, this time… in the coal/lignite industry.
That electricity production is only about 17 % of total energy consumption, is known even here, oh yes. But we must start somewhere…
No, Sir, I’m no Greenie. Nothing to do with them.
We simply
– live here in a desert-free corner,
– do not know where to put the waste accumulated since decades becaused all long time storage facilities utterly failed, and
– do not want to leave all that to the next generations.
Rgds
J.-P. Dehottay
Nothing you said refutes anything that the OP stated. The U.S. today is not Germany from 1975. In fact, other than being about energy, what you posted has nothing to do with the original article! In the words of the immortal Bugs Bunny, “What a maroon.”
Paul Penrose
If a German person came along and would read your reply, s/he would say
“Oh Gott! Dieser Herr Penrose ist ja richtig bierernst!”
(https://translate.google.com/?hl=en#de/en)
And let me please add, Mr Penrose, that if your job was to collect all comments published at WUWT having ‘nothing to do with the original article’, you would be busy 24/7…
J.-P. D.
They started shutting down the nuclear plants and as a result many people are freezing in the dark because they can no longer afford electricity.
OK troll.
They built the plants and they didn’t freeze in the dark.
David
You are being entirely too hard on these compassionate politicians, who really care about the world, and just want world peace and cake for everyone. You have to understand that it is people who can’t do anything else who become professional politicians. They should be treated with the same respect and deference as those who didn’t manage to get elected and ended up being admitted to a different kind of institution. The real tragedy is that all of these people consider themselves to be the only sane ones, and believe that everyone else is mentally unstable. Humor them.
Fracken A Ditty Bag, Dave; Says a Navy veteran with 40 years upstream oilfield experience.
If the socialists Democrats were really focused on denying the citizens the fruits of fracing, then they should also demand that any well fraced in the past be shut-in and abandoned.
It should be done immediately. Now!!! If not, we will all die a horrible death.
If fracing is so terrible, then acidizing will also have to be banned. I guess then that an entire ban on drilling would then need to be instituted. We could even go to war to prevent other countries from drilling and mining. I’m joking but a lot of the “I’m nobeler than you” socialist democrat college students and current presidential candidates would mind-meld their way to this conclusion using the Miss Latella school of thought.
There are very few people commenting on this post that realize the true impact that fracing has had on the oil and gas industry in the US and in the world.
Its not just the horizontal plays that are fraced. Wells that were drilling in the thirties were fraced later in their production lives in order for them to remain economic. Many of those older wells are still producing.
To shut down fracing, and by extension, all wells that have been fraced, would bring ruin to this country.
Fracing is the current scape goat chosen by the democrats. They must have run out of nasty things to say about coal and nuclear.
“U.S. crude oil production helped win World Wars I and I.”
And German / Italian crude oil shortages helped lose it for them:
“The MAIN Reason Why Germany Lost WW2 – OIL” (by TIK)
This guy is so wrong, I hardly know where to begin. Oil *was* a big factor, but the main reasons Germany lost WWII were economical might, manpower, and ridiculous time schedules.
Germany could not economically compete with Russia, let alone the rest of the world, and the U.S. was (is) mightier than the Soviet Union. The energy to power America was mostly COAL. It is a ridiculous statement to suggest Great Britain was a power because of oil – they were a power because of their economic might (especially through colonization) and this LED to high coal production. Cause and effect are completely backwards in this guys mind.
Germany assumed it could win quick decisive wars. Well, it did against completely unprepared countries that were using old tactics. Once they invaded the Soviet Union it was game-over. Too much land, too many people, taking too much time. Even had they taken Moscow, it wouldn’t have changed the outcome.
Oil became a huge factor BECAUSE of the Soviet invasion. Had they never invaded the Soviet Union, they were well on their way to producing massive amounts of oil through coal-conversion. There was no way Germany could ever take the Soviet Union using their own manpower, and this was their second major front. They lost the war because they planed and acted stupidly.
https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-2ef40074c8dd3c54ca24e840bbff60a8
German generals knew they could not win a war of attrition – they knew they had to win quickly. After they failed, all they could hope for were better terms if they drew out the war long enough.
Germany suffered from many shortages that limited their production, but the loss for air supremacy hurt them worse than any one shortage. Once the allies could bomb at will, production of raw materials (including oil), manufactured goods, and especially transport were greatly harmed.
Yes, if you can’t stop the bombers from flying over you, then you are a cooked goose.
There is only one reason Germany lost the war. It attacked Russia. The war was won, if Hitler hadn’t gotten greedy and just consolidated his victory and pursued his tech advantage in both rocketry and Atomic weapons it would be a vastly different world right now.
I some sense I wouldn’t mind Bernie getting elected because some in this country need a huge wake up call to the dangers of socialism. The best teacher is experience.
Most experiments like this result in a huge amount of economic damage and many countries never seem to recover. Please wait until after I am dead to experiment on our economic model that has been the most successful in the history of all mankind.
(Note to feminists: I use the word “Mankind” as in all Human Kind and include the female gender just like the word is intended to)
(Note to self: Why is the expression “all mankind”? Is there a “partial mankind”?)
RoT
Yes, there are the “Haves” and the “Have Nots.” And there are the “Woke” and the “Clueless.” But, all of the ‘partials’ are a derivative of “Mankind.”
The problem is once you have crossed that frontier there is no going back. Socialism has no opt out clause.
You are forced to participate right through to the bitter end as it runs it course toward economic despair and eventually the reeducation camps and finally the killing fields.
In every case as it begins to fail, the socialist blames the failure on not doing it intently enough, or not providing enough funding, or not being sufficiently committed to the cause, or on the individuals who selfishly put individual rights and freedoms ahead of the community. They claim with a little more regulation, more gov power, and more money, they can make it work. More, more, more and more socialism to make it work. The Great Society then needs a Great Leap Forward to a Cultural Revolution. It very rapidly becomes too big to fail. We might already be breaching that line of demarcation with so many dependent on Gov jobs.
When one digs a bit, one will find that fracking is part and parcel of the “renewable” energy scam.
The various pol, crat, and the connected’s “renewable” energy scams require traditional generation plants to back them up. The only traditional plants that are flexible enough to do so are natural gas powered plants.
The fracking industry is also extremely debt laden, and will implode with the “renewable” energy scam. Unfortunately, millions of Americans will lose much of their pension savings when that occurs.
For the technical and mathematical details of the “renewable” energy scam and the need for natural gas generation plants backing it up, read “Power Hungry” by Robert Bryce. He is neutral, but the details speak for themselves.
David Mittleton
“From 1984-2008, Texas spent $163 million P&A’ing “orphaned wells”… In 2008, alone, oil & gas operators in Texas paid $8.55 billion in state & local taxes (mostly state) and royalty payments to the State of Texas. In 2017, the state spent $11.6 million on P&A’ing “orphaned wells”, while generating over $11 billion in tax and royalty revenue.”
Uh, ok. They pay the royalties they must. Royalties that they obligated themselves to pay ALONG WITH their asset retirement obligations. They let the state assume a part/thousand of their true asset retirement obligations, so far. They shirk the rest. Got it….
The vast majority do properly fund their ARO obligations. Among the many taxes paid to the State, some are specifically to cover the cost of orphaned and/or old improperly abandoned wells.
David Mittleton
“Horst schist. There are very few “leaking wells and platforms” in the GoM. BSEE efficiently enforces the regulations and the vast majority of operators proactively comply, because failure to do so is extremely expensive.”
Cleopatra is is just another Queen of Denial. Dream on. Here’s just one example. The GOM is is an antique junk pile of hydraulically incompetent well bores and platorms that are already sagging under gravitational force. Ben Dover BOEM and state regulators are paid up to look away….
The CONUS is full of Taylor Energy’s…
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/uncapped-wells-have-been-leaking-oil-into-the-gulf-of-mexico-for-14-years
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/uncapped-wells-have-been-leaking-oil-into-the-gulf-of-mexico-for-14-years
Horst schist. There’s ONE MC 20 (Taylor Energy), just like there was ONE Macondo (Deepwater Horizon) among over 50,000 wells drilled in the Federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico since 1947. The MC 20 platform was toppled by a submarine mudslide during Hurricane Ivan. Since then, the requirements for drilling and installing production facilities in potential slide zones have been tightened. In the Gulf, both the regulators and operators learn from experience.
Taylor Energy is still obligated to pay the costs for this and was forced to place the funds in a trust.
https://www.bsee.gov/newsroom/library/incident-archive/taylor-energy-mississippi-canyon
https://www.bsee.gov/newsroom/library/incident-archive/taylor-energy-mississippi-canyon/ongoing-response-efforts
https://www.bsee.gov/newsroom/library/incident-archive/taylor-energy-mississippi-canyon/fact-sheet
https://www.offshoreenergytoday.com/u-s-coast-guard-takes-control-of-mc20-oil-spill-containment/
The problem with MC 20 is that they still don’t know where the oil is coming from.
David Mittleton
“The vast majority do properly fund their ARO obligations.”
Uh, no. AGAIN. They put up token “bonds” that cover a few parts/thousand of the actual costs. Per the link I spoon fed you earlier, we will either end up with 12-13 figures communized on the rest of us, or settle for parts of our nation turning into trash cans (per the FSU), or some combo….
The link you provided was to a totally retarded LinkedIn post… It bore no resemblance to the reality of where I have gone to work every day since May 1981.
I provided you with actual numbers from actual sources.
ARO obligations are taken very seriously by every publicly traded oil & gas company.
https://www.sec.gov/interps/account/sab106.htm
Companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico without adequate asset value are required to post bonds sufficient to cover their ARO.
Absolute horst schist.